bob bower, let me ask you about the legal issues if any and we know this is very early on, just looking at these e-mails and the lawyer for donald trump jr. said there is nothing to it, less there than meets the eye. >> i don't know how anybody familiar with the campaign finance laws can say there is nothing to it. i'm not sure where in the world that comes from. matt correctly stated, there is a clear cut prohibition on federal law on accepting support. anything of value for that matter from a foreign national, accepting it or soliciting it or for that matter even providing substantial assistance to the russian government and trying to influence the election. and these e-mails reflect knowledge that the government supported the trump campaign, and knowledge that the russian government was prepared to take action through intermediaries with the assistance of the trump campaign and bringing about that result. >> now, rick stengel, you've been an official at the state department and you have a deep knowledge of russia as well. first of all, this lawyer, this woman, who was arguing in favo

back with us once again is bob bower. mr., thank you again for sticking with us. >> certainly. >> i know that when presidential pardons are issued for all previous presidents, we have always known about it. there's always been a public statement about it. is that legally required or could a president do this in a way that we didn't necessarily know about it, at least if are the time being? >> i think it's highly unlikely for a couple of reasons. and of course this depends on the degree to which the white house is careful about looking at the exercise of the pardon power. eventually it has to become public or it's useless. it's an act of immunization. you have to have the pardon out there so whoever benefits from it can use it to their advantage. secondly it's clear from the pardon power that it was meant to be an act of full public accountability. it was extraordinary power balanced out by the president's requirement of answering for it. for example, to the congress, to the american public. and there's never been a pardon tha

be up for it >>> joining us now, bob bower. correspondence association. >> and he does not put out statements attacking other people in the white house. >> he doesn't? >> you were asked to, right? >> i was asked to release a story that the white house doesn't like. i said we don't release statements about stories written by our members. >> it had to be shocking to you that they had asked you that. such an ignorance of what your function was and what the white house press corp. -- >> yeah. it is definitely not our role to do that. the white house can criticize another reporter or reporting that it doesn't like but we are certainly not going to release a statement. >> all right. >> bob bower i want to take a look at this time line. on june 3rd a short time after donald trump secured the delegates to become the apparent rb nominee rob goldstone reached out with an offer of russian government support against hillary clinton. trump jr. replied if it's what you said i love it. donald trump made this promise. >> i am going to give a m

. >>> joining us now, bob bower. also with us david k. johnson. and also with us, max boone. bower, what's your reading of the possible legal liabilities coming out of that meeting? >> well aspect of this meeting that may have been overlooked is that everyone who attended. campaign manager, attended his agent on behalf of the campaign. the campaign is an organization comes within the circle of potential skploesh you're here. i think that's getting lost with the emphasis on donald trump jr.'s potential exposure. of course each one of those individuals has to account for their actions and what led to them and what followed. but i think we ought to recognize that trump committee here wasn't involved in any solicitation, or for that matter, any value they solicited in violation of the law if in fact the evidences establishes that. >> can i stop you on the solicitation of something of value. that has been testified to in law that something can be of information. something of value is money. something of value is you will cater our event for free. give us hotel space for free. some

ben ginsburg and bob bower, they were part of presidential commission on election which produced a report secretaries across the nation like myself continue to implement. there's great things we can do but the federal government reaching over to basically make government bigger is not the step we need to do and especially creating #fakecommission. >>> alison grimes, is there a penalty? have you been made aware of a penalty for noncompliance? >> this is not a demand, not sanctioned by congress. indeed, it's not something we believe there will be a court of law procedure. but if so, be happy to stand up in court and protect the citizens of kentucky, making sure their private information, their social security number, their entire voting history, their political affiliation, these are things people worry about possibly facing retribution. we know the president operates as you your self just reported, 140 characters at a time. this isn't something we need to be playing around with, protecting the integrity of our elections is paramount. this unfortunately is not a request in that right direct

>> joining me now bob bower and former co-chair of the presidential commission on election administrationormer president obama in 2013. bob, thanks for joining us here. i want to get your perspective. what do you expect to come out of today's meeting over the next 90 minutes, two hours or so? >> not much. the commission already issued this extremely controversial letter that was, in many respects, not legal. in other respects not prudential and not wise. and now it's on hold because of litigation. i think the commission is having a meeting today to sort of try to put on the error that it is going to proceed now according to regular order. we haven't seen much regular order so far. >> they're requesting information and we have some of it up on screen here that is pubically available in voter role data. of course some of the information is really sensitive. the last four digits of social security numbers, et cetera. do you see the commission backing off of this request at all and if they don't get this information from states how problematic for their end goal here? >> they're not going to